Tag: swedish

I was just in my local supermarket doing a quick bit of food shopping. Although the place was relatively empty at that time of day, I noticed that a few of the aisles were the most popular. Throngs of people gathered in the TexMex aisle, the soft drinks aisle and the aisle displaying crisps.

Of course, I thought! It’s Friday! And in Sweden, that means Fredagsmys!

‘Fredagsmys’ is loosely translated as ‘Friday Cosying’, and it is a relatively modern ritual in Sweden established in the 90’s. Prevalent up and down the country, ‘fredagsmys’ is when friends and families gather together to mark the end of the working week. it’s mostly associated with families and children and traditions differ family to family. However, one common denominator seems to be that food should be easy and quick to make. In other words, Friday night is a huge night for tacos and pizza in Sweden.

Gathering around food for cosy family evenings has a long tradition in Sweden. In the 1800’s and 1900’s something called ‘Söndagsfrid’ (Sunday peace) was popular. Then in the 1970’s ‘kvällsgott’ (Evening Goodies) became a concept.

The concept ‘fredagsmys’ became popularised in a high-profile advertising campaign for crisps. With the perky slogan ”Now it’s the end of the week, it’s time for Friday cosying”, (really, it’s perky in Swedish), they captured the Swedish market and encouraged the consumer to devour potato chips on Friday nights. In 2006, the word ‘fredagsmys’ entered the Swedish dictionary.

I remember when my parents visited me in Sweden and remarked in surprise that there were a lot of ‘dark-haired people’ here. Somehow, it didn’t match their stereotype of the Swede as being tall, white, blonde, blue-eyed Christians.

It’s interesting to see the response on people’s faces when they realise who is in fact Swedish. Sure, Alexander Skarsgård, PewDiePie and Robyn all fit the mould. But that Seinabo Sey, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Neneh Cherry are Swedish is often met with a surprised gasp. Stereotypes really are hard to shift.

Sweden is a fairly diverse country – ethnically, religiously and culturally. About 25% of the population is born abroad or has both parents born outside of Sweden. Extend that to one parent and the number increases to around a third of the Swedish population.

I am a true believer in cultural diversity. So, to celebrate the plurality of this kingdom in the north, I am starting a series of posts that will shine the light on various religious and ethnic groups that exist amongst people with Swedish citizenship. My hope is that it will dispel some of those stereotypes of Swedes that exist and that it will broaden your mind regarding what it means to be Swedish.

First out…..Sikhism

Growing up in the multi-religious UK, as I did, I saw a lot of Sikhs. What distinguished them from others was the fact that some of them wore a turban (known as a ‘dastaar’). Sikh bus drivers, police officers, doctors all wore their dastaar together with their uniforms, and today they are exempt from wearing helmets when riding a motor bike. I remember it causing great debate in the media and the discussion revolving around the ‘ridiculousness’ of this head gear. What ethnic British people failed to realise, and many still do today, is that the Sikh dastaar is not just a means to keep the head warm. The dastaar is an integral part of the unique Sikh identity, representing piety, self-respect, honour and purity of mind. Under the dastaar, the Sikh keeps the hair uncut as respect to the Gurus and to God – the idea being that hair is part of God’s creation and therefore should be kept as God intended it.

In Sweden, Sikhism is a small minority of an estimated 4000 people but in the world there are 30 million Sikhs, mostly living in Punjab in India. Sikhism was founded in the 16th century by Guru Nanak and is based on his teachings and those of the 9 gurus who came after him. The Sikh religion is a hands-on religion – believing in doing good deeds rather than merely carrying out rituals. For a Sikh, the concepts of honesty, generosity and equality are strong corner stones. In Sweden, Sikhs have their places of worship – a Gurdwara – in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö – and anybody is welcome to these places of worship, regardless of religious belief. The Sikh religious scripture is called the Guru Granth Sahib. Interestingly, Sikhs consider the book a living Guru and it is therefore treated in the same respectful manner that a person would be.

Sikhs try to avoid 5 vices, in order to live better lives. These vices are something we could probably all think about avoiding: lust, greed, attachment to things of this world, anger and pride.

In a couple of weeks on 14th March, it is ‘Vaisakhi’ – the Sikh New Year. This year it will be year 551 (time begins at the birth of founder Guru Nanak).

Sikhs started to emigrate to Sweden in the 1970’s. Some came as job-seekers, others as refugees. The Sikh population is often referred to as an example of successful integration into Swedish society – as most Sikhs secured good employment and invested in the higher education of their children.

One of the fun things about learning a foreign language are the words that are rude, or funny in your own language.

Swedish has a few of them: slut, kräpp, plopp, kock, spurt

But the funniest one is probably the most purile; it is the ever prevailing ‘fart’, especially when you see it on street signs. This is the word that has most visitors to Sweden holding their sides with laughter.

Even after all these years, I can still have a little giggle when I think about the word ‘fart’ and its various usages in Swedish. In Swedish, ‘fart’ can mean a lot of things such as speed, drive, route, pace, spirit, vivacity, rate. But it is when it is put together with another word that it becomes amusing. Childish, I know…but here we go…

utfart – ‘out fart’ – exit from a building

uppfart – ‘up fart’ – driveway

infart – ‘in fart’ (sounds painful) – entrance

avfart – ‘of fart’ – exit from a motorway

framfart – ‘forward fart’ (quite an accomplishment) – progress

fartkamera – ‘fart camera’ (didn’t know these existed) – speed camera

kringfart – ‘circular fart’ (also sounds painful) – causeway

fartfylld -‘full of fart’ (know a few people like that) – speedy

krypfart – ‘crawl fart’ – crawl

luftfart – ‘air fart’ (the worst) – air travel

fartrand – ‘fart stripe’ – go faster stripe on a car

maxfart -‘maximum fart’ – top speed

farthållare – ‘fart holder’ (dangerous) – cruise control

blixtfart – ‘flash fart’ – flash speed

fjärrfart -‘distant fart’ – transocean traffic

halvfart – ‘half fart’ – half speed

snigelfart – ‘snail fart’ – snail speed

förbifart – ‘passing fart’ – ring road

fartgräns – ‘fart limit’ – speed limit

marschfart – ‘marching fart’ (like a hit and run!) – cruise speed

överljudsfart – ‘supersonic fart’ (impressive!) – supersonic speed

fartblind – ‘fart blind’ (although deaf is probably preferable) – when you become desensitised to the speed you are driving and stop noticing it

If you like this, please share it. Let’s see if we can share some farts over social media!

Also, please follow me on Instagram, where I put up other content – films and pics! #watchingtheswedes

In Sweden, you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting somebody Finnish or of Finnish heritage. Almost everybody knows somebody with a Finnish connection. In fact, there are so many Finns living in Sweden that they have their own commemorative day. And today is that day.

Today, 24th February is ‘Sverigefinnarnas’ Day, (Sweden Finns Day) – the day that celebrates the roughly half million people who live in Sweden and have Finnish as their mother tongue.

So why are there so many Finns in Sweden?

There has been a long history of emigration between the two countries, especially in the border regions of the north. However, a larger emigration happened when 70,000 young Finnish children were evacuated to Sweden during WW2. 15,000 are believed to have stayed and an unknown number to have returned as adults.

Then, in the 1950s and 1960s the migration from Finland to Sweden was considerable, chiefly due to economic differences between the countries. Sweden had the industry, the jobs and the housing. This caused some alarm in Finland with most of the emigrants in their most productive age — although many of them returned to Finland in the following decades.

In the year 2000, the Sweden Finns were recognised as an official national minority group in Sweden. In fact, the Sweden Finns are the largest national minority group in Sweden. Other large minority groups come from former Yugoslavia, Irak, Syria and Poland – although these do not have official national minority group status.

In 2007, a flag was designed which combines the Swedish and the Finnish colours.

If you’re in Sweden today, you may well see this flag flying proudly around the country.

We’ve all been there. Those embarrassing moments when the belly rumbles and we have to race to the toilet to evacuate as quickly as possible. An all round unpleasant, and undignified, experience.

Well, February in Sweden is synonymous with sickness and right now there’s a stomach flu flying around the country. So last night at dinner, conversation moved onto sickness and landed on a colloquial Swedish word for diarrhoea.

The discussion was about where this word comes from. So, true to form, I researched it.

And I have the answer.

The word in question is the Swedish word ‘rännskita‘. One theory was that it originated from the word ‘takränna’ which is a gutter, and would reflect the speed at which the water runs down the drainpipe. But actually that’s not it.

The word is a combination of the old Swedish word ‘ränna’ which means ‘to run’ (often quickly) and the word ‘skita’ which means to shit. It’s directly translatable to the English ‘ to have the runs’.

Although it sounds like a new word, it actually entered the Swedish language in 1587! I guess it was a problem back then.

So there you go. Another fascinating foray into the Swedish language with ‘Watching the Swedes’.

Around this time of the year, schools In Sweden have a week’s holiday. Called ‘Sportlov‘, it’s a traditional time for a winter sport break.

This tradition was introduced in the early years of WW2 as a way to save energy. Heating up schools cost money and, due to rationing, councils were instructed to drastically reduce their heating expenses. So shutting the schools seemed like a good idea.

To give the pupils something meaningful to do while the school was shut, the authorities organised various activities, many focused on being outdoors and exercising.

Serendipitously, experts realised, during the 1950’s, that infection spread less widely at this time of the year if schools were closed for a week. So the winter sport break became cemented as an official disease control method.

Nowadays, many families head off to the mountains to go skiing, some head off to the Alps for the same purpose. Others may fly away to the sunny beaches of the world.

For those of us left in town, it’s sheer bliss.

The gym is empty. The streets are spacious. There is hardly anybody on the buses and tube, traffic is significantly thinner and less noisy and it’s easy to get a seat at lunch time.

And the fact that there are hardly any children in town means something great for the rest of us.

We don’t get infected with diabolical kid bacteria that would knock us out until mid March.

On Sunday, it’s the annual Oscar’s gala and this year there are 2 Swedish nominations included. Over the Oscar’s 91-year history, 14 Swedes have taken home a statue. Many of these academy awards are for lighting, costumes, photography and direction. Not much for acting. In fact, despite Sweden’s excellent acting corps, only 2 people have won an Oscar for their acting talents.

Do you know who they are?

Below, you will find their names.

1944, Ingrid Bergman for Best Lead Actress in ‘Gaslight’ and in 1956 for ‘Anastasia’. She also won for Best Supporting Actress in ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ in 1974